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Wednesday, April 22, 2015

What do pet cats really need?

Are you meeting your cat's needs?

What do cats really need
from their environment? The non-feline oriented may roll their eyes and wonder
why veterinarians, cat owners and others are even asking the question. But it’s
critical to their welfare.

Companion cats are, to put
it bluntly, captive. We keep them in an unnatural environment over which they
typically have little control, so it’s up to us to ensure that that environment
meets their needs.

Everyone who works with cats
knows that their environment impacts on their physical health, wellbeing and
behaviour.

Provide a safe place: cats
prefer avoidance to confrontation and as such like to have the option of
withdrawing to a safe zone. In most houses and multi-room apartments cats can
find places to retreat to where they feel safe. In my house, the wardrobe is
quite popular. As is any suitcase. Or under/behind furniture. I don’t always
feel safe when a little paw strikes me from under the coffee table, but at
least I know Hero feels better!

Michael likes to retreat to her teepee when Hero is overexcited.

Provide multiple and
separated key environmental resources: food, water, litter trays/toileting
areas, scratching areas, play and exercise areas and sleeping areas. Cats are solitary
animals who enjoy privacy and cope much better if they’re not forced to undertake
their daily ablutions and other routines in front of an audience, feline or
not. In my experience, owners really struggle with litter trays. You need at
least one for each cat AND one extra. Having one litter tray in a multi-pet
household is like subjecting your cats to the vilest public toilet and
expecting them to feel comfortable in it. They don’t. It’s not that much more
trouble to clean two litter trays.

There are some things that cats like to do in private. Toileting is definitely one of these.

Provide opportunity for play
and predatory behaviour: cats that don’t have these opportunities may suffer
from boredom, obesity and misdirected behaviours. Playing predatory games with
your cat does not give them a license to kill, but it is helpful in meeting
their behavioural needs. Even older cats need to play. The easiest, cheapest
version of this is the old scrunch up a bit of paper and throw it down the
hallway past your cat. Even if they sit there and watch you flick your old tax
return around for an hour, they’ve been entertained.

Paper and string is all you need to get a cat excited. Neverleave kittens unsupervised with string. they have a way of eating it.

Provide positive, consistent
and predictable human-cat interaction: most cats like frequent but short
interactions with people, and the scientifically proven best spots to pat them
are on the head or around the cheeks. Some cats like Michael will allow you to
pat them on the head and, once they’ve assessed you’re up to the task, roll
over and show you the other bits they want patted. Not all cats are like that
and you can’t force them. Don’t, whatever you do, blow a raspberry on a cat’s
belly. In 99.9 per cent of cases, this will not be well received.

Occasional visitors are "permitted" to give Michael a neck and shoulder massage once they have patted her on the head and under the chin.

Provide an environment that
respects the importance of the cat’s sense of smell: they’re much more
sensitive to smell than we are, and some smells (such as marking of another cat
outside) can be offensive and distressing to them. Use of cleaning products
that disrupt or offend your cat’s olfaction is discouraged. Providing familiar
scents (via bedding or clothing) may have a calming effect. For me, having had
both cats in hospital in the last few months, I’m reminded of just how foreign
they smell when they come home from the vet. They act like they don’t know each
other for a day or so. I’ve used a synthetic feline facial pheromone, Feliway,
to try to spread some feline happiness. I’ve also been a big fan of giving them
something that I think smells good and entertains them – cat grass.

Minty with a massive pot of cat grass.

You can read the full
article – including dozens of specific suggestions – via the Journal of Feline
Medicine and Surgery or you can read the brochure for cat owners here.

Veterinary Ethics: Navigating Tough Cases

WARNING

All images and content on this site are copyright Anne Fawcett unless stated otherwise and should not be reproduced without written permission. Please be aware that some surgical and clinical images are used on this site.